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Facts Are Important When it Comes to Understanding Energy

Columns

More than two years ago my wife, Lynnda, got the news. “You have breast cancer.” Not the news we wanted to hear. The doctor added, “We caught it early thanks to your breast exam.” They called it “stage zero.” Lynnda was given options. She chose a lumpectomy. After surgery we were told the margins are clear, meaning they think they got it all. Lynnda was given another choice to get a series of radiation treatments just to make sure they got it all. She was told radiation would reduce the chance of reoccurrence by 50%. Lynnda asked, “What is my chance of reoccurrence ...

What Do We Do About the Growing Threat from China?

Columns

The United States is confronting an existential threat — but not the kind defined by ships on the horizon or missiles in the air. The danger instead stems from a waning sense of national purpose and a growing doubt about America’s global role. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the emerging geopolitical alignment linking China, Russia and Iran. This threat does not imply that China is preparing a direct attack on the United States. Rather, it reflects what will happen as America retreats from the world stage. Russia will expand its influence throughout Eastern ...

Belmont County Offers Plenty to Celebrate Season

Columns

Belmont County is filled with all the joys of the season! The holiday season is, without a doubt, the most awaited time of the year. When the air turns cold, the day turns dark, Christmas lights start twinkling, and jingle bells are ringing there is no better place than Belmont County to get you into the holiday spirit! From parades to outdoor festivals, Christmas shopping for one-of-a-kind gifts to sipping hot cocoa, and picking out a freshly cut Christmas trees, we have you covered. The Christmas tree is a symbolic part of holiday traditions, and no matter how or when you ...

Ed Marling’s Service Lifted Communities

Editorials

In an era where public service too often feels transactional and overshadowed by political noise, the retirement of Bellaire Mayor Ed Marling serves as a reminder of what steady, local leadership can mean to communities. For 24 years, Marling has been a presence in eastern Ohio civic life — not for headlines or ambition, but because he believed the people of Shadyside and Bellaire deserved a leader that showed up, put in the work, and never asked others to do what he wasn’t willing to do himself. Marling’s long tenure in public service began nearly four decades ago, when he ...

New Tech Creates Demand for Materials

Columns

Generative artificial intelligence has become widely accepted as a tool that increases productivity. Yet the technology is far from mature. Large language models advance rapidly from one generation to the next, and experts can only speculate how AI will affect the workforce and peoples’ daily lives. As a materials scientist, I am interested in how materials and the technologies that derive from them affect society. AI is one example of a technology driving global change. But before AI evolved to its current level, two other technologies exemplified the process created by the demand ...

When Did We Allow a ‘Kill Them All’ Stance?

Columns

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours?” — Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023), “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” As we learn more about the events on Sept. 2, 2025, in international waters 1,500 miles from the United States, the behavior of the United States military becomes more legally troubling than at first blush. We have learned from members of Congress and others who have seen the videos of the attacks on the speedboat that day that the first strike mainly — but not completely — destroyed the boat and killed 9 of the ...